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The XC thread

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Curly45 4 Jan 9:12am, 4 Jan 2025 4,900 posts	Quote Pin Curly45 Our race is 11:55 at Shipley Mrs Jigs (Luverlylegs) Magpie isnt running the men's as not well enough. We have Damson Jam cake if that tempts you
Mrs Jigs (Luverlylegs) 4 Jan 9:13am, 4 Jan 2025 48,690 posts	Quote Pin Mrs Jigs (Luverlylegs) Ah, my mistake, I was thinking you were racing in Kettering as I believe there is xc here today. Good luck!
Mrs Jigs (Luverlylegs) 4 Jan 9:15am, 4 Jan 2025 48,691 posts	Quote Pin Mrs Jigs (Luverlylegs) Cake is tempting though... shame we can't make it.
larkim 4 Jan 9:17am, 4 Jan 2025 26,348 posts	Quote Pin larkim We're at Cheshire today. My wife's race is a full 1/3 shorter than the men's at a rather pathetic 6.2km. Obviously it doesn't make it any easier but even she said "it's barely longer than a parkrun"! Even if a shorter female race is preferred by the majority, on a course where they could easily have added a km or 2 the gap between the two events feels a touch too large
Curly45 4 Jan 9:33am, 4 Jan 2025 4,901 posts	Quote Pin Curly45 6.2km! I thought they were supposed to be 8kmish to help with selection for inter counties? Ours is 7.5km and I was thinking that was too short. No worries Mrs Jigs (Luverlylegs), I was a bit confused, but easily done.
larkim 4 Jan 9:40am, 4 Jan 2025 26,350 posts	Quote Pin larkim Hadn't thought about the intercounties implication. That's a really good point.
Curly45 4 Jan 10:00am, 4 Jan 2025 4,902 posts	Quote Pin Curly45 Not all counties use champs to select so maybe it's that. I'd have no objection to a shorter race all the way through (I. E. Up to nationals), but what you do with the age groups gets complicated then. U20 is particularly difficult for women as they are often not enough runners to make it a proper race and it can be quite a big jump up to Women's, distance and ability wise. Ours is colocated with another county as short on runners. Bit sad really.
Curly45 4 Jan 2:21pm, 4 Jan 2025 4,903 posts	Quote Pin Curly45 My kind of course today, most frozen but enough mud and hills to be interesting. Shame about my lurgy, was in line with my previous recent XC races, but I expect if I'd been better I would have done better by 2-3 positions. Wouldn't have been enough to qualify this year as quality was good. 22nd, 12th vet. Not bad considering lurgy. Fuelled by lemsip 😂
larkim 4 Jan 6:27pm, 4 Jan 2025 26,351 posts	Quote Pin larkim Course at Betley Farm was surprisingly good today, despite the gripes about course length. Bit odd travelling to Staffordshire for the Cheshire County Champs (Staffordshire's weren't colocated with Cheshire, otherwise it would have made some sense as we've colocated with Gtr Manchester before). First lap conservative, second lap felt dreadful and backed off a touch, third lap felt a lot better and picked off some places. Next in age cat was 2min up the road, so even if I'd tried a fair whack harder I'd have had to have been 20s per mile faster to overcome that.
Curly45 4 Jan 7:56pm, 4 Jan 2025 4,905 posts	Quote Pin Curly45 Pretty good run Larks. Ours turned out to be over 8km despite advertised shortcomings 😂 always makes me chuckle that. I don't look at the watch when running XC anyway, too busy looking at the floor and competitors.